Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Slava Grigoryan  
© Simon Schiff

Slava Grigoryan has a quite the reputation as a classical guitar virtuoso. Since making a career breakthrough at the Tokyo International Classical Guitar Competition in 1993, he has released numerous albums for solo and collaborative projects, and has toured internationally extensively. In 2021, he was commissioned to create a suite of new works for the Hush Foundation. The resulting work, Gratitudes, is an album of original solo guitar works dedicated to the healthcare workers who showed tireless care during the pandemic.

Ahead of the album's release, we caught up with Slava to find out more about the project.

Congratulations on the release of Gratitudes! This is the first album of your own original music, after a few projects with close collaborators in more recent years. What has been your journey with composition so far?

I've always dabbled with composition, both on my own and in collaboration with others. The earliest official releases were on an album called Another Night in London back in 1998, where I co-wrote a few tunes with a very dear Austrian friend, Al Slavik. Over the years I've very slowly added to that catalogue but honestly, the lockdown that happened 3 years ago was the first time I could afford to dive into it properly. In 2020, my brother Lenny and I co-wrote This Is Us, a project that was commissioned by the National Museum of Australia. It was released in '21 and we've been touring it ever since.

And how did this project come about?

I'd worked with Dr Catherine Crock previously. Lenny and I produced an album for the Hush Foundation in 2010. The ethos of what they are creating has always resonated very strongly with me and since 2010 we've always been in touch and have continued collaborating when presented with opportunities. In 2021, Cath asked me if another album was possible, and for me it was perfect timing to dive into my first solo project of original music. Again, second year of lockdown and plenty of time for composing, I immersed myself in this project and ultimately recorded all the pieces in Hobart in June, 2022.

The Hush Foundation is a charity that transforms healthcare environments through the power of music, and you've shared a bit about how you've seen the impact of music for people in healthcare environments. Can you tell us a bit more about that and how it shaped your approach in composing this album?

Having experienced how this music is absorbed by staff and patients in the hospital setting back in 2009, I had a pretty clear idea about what works and what is inappropriate.

I think that a musical narrative needs to be established in each piece, while maintaining a welcoming and soothing atmosphere without too much sentimentality. I always keep on coming back to the idea of that 'spine tingling' reaction to music that is possible to experience when hearing something that evokes such positiveness. That's my goal anyway.

Musically speaking, how would you describe the sound world of this album?

It's a very intimate, warm, personal sound. I wanted the 'space' to feel like a big church or cathedral but, for the listener to be in close proximity to the guitar. I guess that's the atmosphere that I love most on solo guitar recordings that are important to me. Ralph Towner has always been a huge influence, and try as I might, it's very hard for me as a musician to not nod my head in his direction as often as I do!

We'd love to hear more from you! Do you have any new projects planned in the near future?

My brother Lenny and I have an album of new music being released later this year. We've put together a collection of new works written for us by composers including Leo Brouwer, Ralph Towner, Wolfgang Muthspiel, William Lovelady, Luke Howard, Nat Bartsch, Shaun Rigney and ourselves amongst others. We're always particularly excited about sharing new music with audiences and it's been almost 10 years since we released a similar album.

Slava Grigoryan's Gratitudes album will be released on Friday 19 May 2023. The single "Winter City Lights" is now available to listen now.